John Force Heated Arguement with Tony Pedregon Indy US Nationals 2009

[nitemarestang]

Tony is a jackass, and so is his brother.

Id have to agree. Aswell as i think teams have to many cars in the same class :shrug:

 

[Sonic605hp]

F Tony....John FTW he is and always will be a legendary driver. I love the Ashley comment.

 

[Coiled03]

Anybody who thinks Force lost on purpose needs a shot to the nutsack. He's way too big of a competitor, and has too much integrity to do that.

 

[WeeZee]

John Force is the king of what he does and thats the end of that conversation, Ashley Force is like Danika Patrick in the sence they both are Hot but are very good there craft

 

[Slo01Cobra]

Anybody who thinks Force lost on purpose needs a shot to the nutsack. He's way too big of a competitor, and has too much integrity to do that.

:lol: He took one for the TEAM! Getting Hight in the countdown was more important to him, and he still had 2 cars left to try and win the nationals.

 

[REX-RACER]

I happen to follow this stuff pretty closely, watch it every time it's on and in my humble opinion, I do believe Force "messed up" on purpose.

I love the guy, have always thought the best of him and what he's not only personally accomplished but what he's done for the sport.

To correct another poster, the race between him and Hight where he "messed up" was to help get Hight into the NHRA chase, not to move him to the top of the points. Hight was on the bubble to get into the chase and the only way for him to GET into the chase was to make it to the final round in yesterday's event. John owns four cars in his Force racing team and 3 of them were already in...he was trying to get Hight in as again, he was on the bubble.

So, since John and his daughter were already in the chase, the only way to get Hight in the chase was to have him win over the race with John himself.

Before the race even started, both the commentators and Tony and Cruz themselves were stating that John would bascially lose on purpose. Which doesn't help because that just pretty much makes it look bad if and when it happens

Well, sure enough, once the race started...John lost.

NHRA officials looked into it and found nothing wrong with car set up, nothing wrong with the data the car logged (meaning did John's team lower the performance of the car, etc)

But...if you look at some facts, it's pretty compelling.
1) John's average reaction time off the line is .082 seconds...he pulled a .202...slow
2) Hights average time is .089...he pulled a .124 (or something similar...cant recall this one exactly) but folks were accusing him of being that slow to ensure he didn't redlight
3) If you look at the film, John immediatly turned into the wall...didn't hit the wall but turned toward it to get out of the groove.

Did John admit he "lost on purpose"? Hell no
Will he admit it? Hell no
As a Team owner and knowing it benefitted him and his Team to lose on purpose so that Hight could get into the chase, was it the right thing to do? Probably!

It's one of those shady scenarios that no matter how you look at it...it absolutely appears that John lost on purpose but I truly believe many folks would have done the same thing if in the same situation.

One of the dealios that you look at what happened and well...if it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc.

The real miss though, is how this really overshadowed the fact that Ashlee actually won the damn race! And she won it legit! 100% legit! She really did and she was the first woman ever to win at that venue in a Funny car...! The last woman to win there was the great Shirley Muldowney in 85' in a Top Fuel car

Too bad that story is being overshadowed by the "fight"...

That's a good break down but you forgot to add that at the time John Force and Robert Hight raced, Robert Hight and Cruz Pedregon were tied for 10th place to get into the "countdown to #1". John had taken out Cruz in the previous round w/ a great run so that meant the only way Cruz would get in would be for John to beat Robert in the next round relegating Robert to 11th place and locking Cruz into 10th and final countdown spot. When John chose the right lane and then immediately smoked the tires, neither of which he'd done all day in eliminations, it looked way too suspicious and sent Tony off the deep end.

The fact that there's some question that John Force through the race to get Robert Hight into the countdown is kind of interesting. John had made a comment before that particular round saying essentially that he'd never throw a race, especially one as big as Indy because he had to be concerned w/ taking care of ALL of his sponsors and he's sure that Castrol/GTX folks wanted to see their car in the winners circle. What's interesting about that is that Ashley's car has the exact same sponsor livery, the two cars are virtually identical. This is interesting because it gives John an "out" as it were. John could then throw the race against Robert Hight ( or at least not try as hard ) and as long as Ashley Force goes on to win the race everyone is happy because Castrol/GTX still gets the winner's circle and Robert Hight w/ AAA sponsorship still make the playoffs. And interestingly enough, that's exactly what happened.

Another interesting side note was also the fact, as was pointed out earlier, Ashley won all of her rounds fare and square, but in the semi-final round that's in question where John Force appears to have intentionally boggied the round by taking the questionable right hand lane, Ashley came up in the next race and also took the right lane and laid down low e.t of the round in her win over T. Ped! Given that everyone knows how much information is shared in among the Force cars, it seems reasonable to assume that John's team could have figured out how to get down the right lane as well . . . especially given that Rober Hight was over in the left lane cutting a mediocre at best .143 light.

Like the other guy said, I'm not sayin' . . . I'm just sayin'. :dw:

 

[Stevenbekah]

Agreed...!

 

[Black Talon]

John Force is no cheater.

 

[1Sick2Valve]

Cruz is a complete POS, and a terrible sore loser. He needs to keep his opinions to himslef and not be an attention whore. As for tony he also needs to shut up. I agree alot of respect and time was taken away from ashley since oh i dunno the last female to win at the US Nationals was shirly muldowny. If Tony and Cruz wanted to make a big Fn stink they should have waited for the race to be over, let the winners have there due, and then deal with it. Like real sportsman. BTW had Cruz not smoked the tires in the second round this situation may have never taken place.

 

[swoosh_stang]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if John eased back the effort just a touch in that race, but frankly, I don't consider that cheating.

Cruz should've kept his mouth shut, if he has a problem, he should take it up with the NHRA, not air it out in front of the media by getting into a fight with Force.

 

[Niks97cobra]

Ashley Force is hot. I'm sure John threw the race, but who cares?

 

[carrrnuttt]

LOL

You pay to play, as the saying goes.

If John has a team capable of putting him in a position where a loss is a win, then more power to him. Maybe the Pedregon boys should get their heads out of their butts, so that they too, can be in that kind of position. The PedreGONEs are acting like John and his team didn't earn everything they got.

 

[Gallows]

Force and Pedregon are like the Hatfield's and McCoy's destined to feud:lol1:

 

[BLOWN PONY]

Anybody who thinks Force lost on purpose needs a shot to the nutsack. He's way too big of a competitor, and has too much integrity to do that.

:dw:

Do you have any idea how much money rides on his decisions...?

I think being a boss man overshadows his personal competitiveness 10 fold...


Anyone got a video of the race he supposedly threw?

 

[SVTkel]

Tony can cry and accuse all he wants, Ashley kicked his butt big time. And I don't think he liked that at all. Bye bye Tony! You may now join Kyle Busch in the Whiner's Tent.

LOL, CobraBob, I never knew you followed Nascar. :banana::banana::whine:

 

[mr2cam]

haha funny video, "my kid just kicked your ass". I love John Force

 

[Jefe]

Sucks when you can own multiple cars/pits and have the choice of who you want to win but then get beat by the owners daughter

 

[wtfMACH1?]

lol, great. Force's little girl spanked his ass.

 

[BreBar21]

I was watching it when it happened. Force 100% without a doubt threw that race. I understand you're not allowed to take a dive, but I also 100% understand WHY he threw it. Stevenbekah pretty much nailed it.

 

[Jmccormick]

i agree with pretty much everyone in this thread right now.